Murder in the Bangcock Hilton!
Bangcock Police are baffled by a recent murder case, involving the mutilated corpse of an American Import/Export executive in the glamorous
"Kublah Khan Honeymoon Suite
" at the Bangcock Hilton. The body of Dick Endor, 41, was found duct taped to a Louis XIV chair wearing nothing but a silk sock on his left foot. The only other piece of evidence is a an audio disc for which Associated Press has the exclusive rights to the following transcription:
"Would you check the time, please?
"You are going to die exactly an hour from now. It is very significant to both the cowardly and the very brave to know the exact ‘hour of their death.’ I’m betting you’re a coward. That means you have just experienced a brutalizing combination of terror and self-revulsion. The rising aroma in this room we’re sharing indicates I was correct in my judgment.
"I can’t imagine that you don’t know why you’re here, but just because we have a little quality time on our hands right now, let’s recapitulate. First of all, you murdered my girlfriend. And that word, ‘girlfriend’ does so little justice to the relationship, no, the bond, that existed between us….no… not exactly a bond….no…. I mean a foundation. The axis upon which the very meaning of our two lives’ existence revolved.
"It means so much to me that it brings to my mind how significant is the destruction of meaning that constitutes the mega-trend of the history of the English language after the industrial revolution. Big thoughts bred from huge violations. You’ve made a thinker out of me, you bastard, and I’ve given a lot of thought to you.
"By the way, that was the last time you will ever hear that "g" word. She was more than a friend and less than a girl, anyway. I shall not use it for the remaining fifty nine minutes and forty five seconds. I bought that cheap little digital alarm clock with the bright red numbers on it just for us. Hope you like it.
"As our little two man group therapy session progresses, I’ll keep you posted regarding a few other words from our language that will never be yours to hear again.
"Sorry about the duct tape. That must have been quite an inconvenience. It’s always bad enough waking up in a strange place, when one’s last muddled recollections are of having been having a wonderful carouse. Suzy’s really quite the charmer. She’s always taken great pride in her skills. I’ve heard she can get most men to come twice before she even takes her stockings off. Even if he’s pretty drunk. I might add that was the last time you will ever feel lucky again. So much for the "l" word.
"The pathetic spectacle of anyone’s complete nudity would only raise the possibility that I might develop any sense of pity for you. Thus, one left sock, so that I am guaranteed of your obscenity and ridiculousness. The shriveling of that worm between your legs is only a reminder that the most pathetically small things can do the most atrocious damage.
"Did you know that the surface area of the genitals only constitutes 2-3% of the human body’s skin? In your case, given that moderate paunch, and dwindling size, I would guess that number to be closer to 2% or even less. And yet how can either of us measure what per cent of both our pain and pleasure, and sense of accomplishment, derives thence?
"I notice you’ve been frequently glancing at the buffet table we have here in our delightful suite of rooms at the Bangcock Hilton. Simple enough tools for our chores ahead inside this lovely and discreet establishment. We are nestled in one of history’s oldest and finest cities. Bangcock was once the center of a small but worthy empire when we Europeans were still trying to figure out which shiny substances we found in the ground were worth fighting over. I hope your experiences in my adopted city have been memorable because, of course, you will never see its spires nor its squalors again.
"Nice drapes, huh? The glossy black velvet I selected offsets the eggshell white of the walls in an ineluctably shimmering way.
"Ah, again the buffet table. Nothing very complicated. Like your own barbaric behavior, simplicity in its quintessence. One Jaguar knife…picked up from a street vendor several weeks ago. Some rubbing alcohol, paper clips, a box of hefty bags, and a case of paper towels are all it will take to dispose of our remaining forty five minutes together. Separate purchases paid in cash over the last few weeks in separate establishments.
"Speaking of bags, let’s have a little go at your scrotum. I’ll bet that right this moment, you’re thinking of how we were trained to ever so gently begin that aspect of the session. No Russian style drop kicks. It throws the subject into shock and hardens the resolve of the better ones. And we’ve been trained to deal with the better ones. The crème de la crème. In that arena we two are alleged equals. My object here is to clarify your mind. I want you perfectly focused. You remember this little nuance? Separating the ball sac into two separate regions using only one hand. Ever so gently. Almost erotic. Remember how the queers got a kick out of the heteros’ obvious discomfort at being aroused by the exertion of so much power, delicately administered?
"The fist we learned to gather to gather these balls of yours into is derived from the southern Shaolin style. I find that particularly appropriate here with you today.
"Did you know that the only reason we have any knowledge of that style is that when the seventeenth century Han emperor wanted to dispose of the fighting monks, he sent his warriors with instructions to kill all the monks, but only to rape the nuns. They killed most of them, anyway. Don’t want anyone writing home to mama about daddy. Little did the Emperor realize that the Daoists that he found so threatening-if the hundred to one ratio of troops to monks is any indication-trained the women as equals to the men. All the macho posturing of the spaghetti Kung Fu flicks would never exist were it not for one little raped nun who survived to keep the flame alive.
"So now for that refresher course in the one handed testicle turn.
"Oh dear. I overdid it with your right testicle. Breath in. No, I won’t take off the duct tape, unless I see the vomit coming out of your nostrils.
"Now we need to wait for you to regain your equilibrium. What a waste of time. My mistake. Can’t have you dying too quickly on me, can I ? I don’t think I tugged or squeezed it any harder than you did Alicia’s right nipple. At least that’s what I infer from the coroner’s report.
"Nevertheless, no matter how much one plans a social event of this kind of magnitude, the unexpected comes up. How could I have planned on my own over-enthusiasm? We’re almost two minutes off my timeline. You know when you’ve only got forty four minutes of fun ahead, every second counts. Especially because I’ve budgeted a certain segment of our tete a tete for when you’re supposed to wish to beg for death, and be unable to. Because of course that good Bangcock duct tape just won’t allow that to happen.
"Let me open up a paper clip while you’re still catching your breath. A little stomach bile through the nostrils never killed anybody, and you’re coming back around quite nicely. We were well trained we two. We both went through worse when they gave us the week incarceration simulation. Three out of our team of forty were screened out in less than the first four hours. By the end of the week only ten of us were left alive.
Remember how frequently they impressed on us the notion that the theatre of the interrogation was really where the art of it lied?
"Good old Colonel Capsicum used to say the best torturer should either be somewhat bored with their work, or failing that, be able to project that attitude for the interrogee’s benefit.
"Speaking of theatre. I think we better improvise an improved airway for the joys ahead.
"Hmm, no, not yet. But, let’s at least go for a little prefigurative foretaste of ecstasies to come. I’ll put a little nick in your nostril for you. Like Roman Polanski in Chinatown. But you’re no Jack Nicholson.
"All that wriggling won’t help you at all, and only emphasizes your ridiculousness. Like a worm on a hook. Like your quivering shrinking penis. A worm within worms, fated for worms. Bait to catch the puppeteer who holds your strings.
"We’ve worked together before, Bernard. You know I would not have taken this approach, if you had kept everything professional and merely murdered her. And I would have understood if you had seduced her, or she you. But your infernal sense of thrift. You couldn’t leave it at that. You repeatedly raped her in the course of the interrogation.
"We’re all professionals, and accept a certain degree of intrinsic risk. You knew that we’ve been trained to accept rape as a part of the interrogation procedure and to distance our psyches from it. But it was stupid and redundant. You could have had a better time with a second class hooker. But you always were a cheapskate.
"Puts a blot on all our escutcheons. I won’t ask why you did it. And what a fucking trail. Even the idiots at Interpol were only a month away from finding you.
But of course, I’m giving you no opportunity to speak again. "Actions speak louder than words," and your actions have spoken volumes. You’ve spoken quite enough for one incarnation.
"I like the application of the tape all the way down to the collarbone. Muffles your attempted yowling. I believe I figure correctly that any neighbor will assume they hear some wonderful sex. We’re at the right place. Motive, opportunity, and means. Let’s see, a little less than an hour, the radio, and that sort of rhythmic moaning you keep making. They’ll figure I’m getting a real piece of your ass. How wrong they’ll be. How right they’ll be.
"Damn, down to forty minutes. Where does the time go? Digression is the death of the timeline. Where was I? Let me check the list. Yeah. Your left eye with the paper clip.
"Does that tickle? Just two millimeters in. And twitching only makes it worse. I like this. The smallest movements I make can wrack you with waves of sensation. Really quite intimate. I truly didn’t expect any kind of pleasure like this. I won’t say it’s better than making love, Bernard, but it’s certainly better than sex with you. Next to that notion, almost a sheer delight.
"Let me scratch the lens now. Ooh. You really don’t like that? Do you? But you know it’s still in your best remaining interests to keep still.
"Nope. You can’t even touch it. You’ll never touch it for the rest of your life. Your eye offendeth me. If you could have injected even one note of defiance, I might have let you watch the clock a little longer. But no, abjectness and cowardice through that other tearful eyeball. You make Bambi look like Attila the Hun.
"How dull. The conquering, cowardly, shriveling geek. Pismire villainy done by the numbers.
"Time to pluck it out.
"Scared you, huh? Quite a lot of blood here. But I just poked through the cornea. Never even touched the iris. And I want to watch your other eye right to the end. I bet what’s left of your vision’s already beginning to clear through the pain. Here. Let me put a little alcohol on that. It’ll stave off infection. The pain’s good for you. I wonder what you’re seeing now? Do you like my smile?
"Here’s a little piece of trivia you can take to the grave with you. Did you know that for the first three nights we spent together, I was impotent? I was so overwhelmed by her beauty, and the potential for a lifetime of happiness, my penis didn’t know what to do. It was accustomed to far less sublime and far more mechanical, almost Pavlovian encounters.
"It took three nights with her for me to adjust to the new paradigm. And when we finally connected, I felt like my soul had connected with the God I had spent a lifetime yearning after.
Don’t flatter yourself. Even in death, you never took that from me. Whether there is a God or not, whether there is a big rock candy afterlife or not, even mortal bliss is unbounded by time or position. That is a bliss you will never know in this incarnation.
"And I, man without hope that I now am, hope that this process will insure that you never know such bliss for all of your eternity, whether that extends for multitudinous lifetimes, or whether it is merely for the next thirty seven minutes that remain for you here.
"See, you gave me what I learned to call the Hamlet Problem in the course of making arrangements for a suitable act of justice. When the Danish prince stayed his hand at the time he came upon his murderous uncle praying in the chapel, his reasoning was remarkably nuanced. Vengeance of any kind of character has to touch the soul. This challenge is exacerbated in our improved times by the fact that we have no confidence in, nor clarified sense of what, the soul might be. Whatever it is, however, I’m going to do my damnedest to nail it in our little meeting here today.
"Devouring, murderous time, which consumes the lion and the worm with equal vigor, masticates our moments here as well. Thirty five minutes. Merciful time for you, colleague, because it means the end of all your misery. So let me admit impediment of that process by bending its perception for you. You know this next move well. The lighter, the paper clip, and your eardrum.
"Stop that infernal wriggling! It does you no good, and can only cause you further agony should I decide to extend your suffering and our time together due to your lack of cooperation. We’ll start with the left. Did you know that in certain mystical schools the left side is associated with the yin, or receptive aspect of the essential being?
"Hamlet’s father was poisoned through his ear as well. I wouldn’t be surprised, though I don’t remember, whether it was specifically his left ear. While he was sleeping. But that man was innocent. I will corrupt your soul with agony while you are awake, and completely lacking in the quality of serene open ended anticipation which characterizes the blessed state we refer to as ‘innocence.’ Kiss that ’I’ word goodbye.
"I want your agony to be that of the damned. I am tattooing your conscious mind with nothing but searing pain and ‘if only I hadn’ts.’ I know you can hear yourself saying that to yourself right now, so that eternity for you, whether it be the eons that religions promise, or whether it is Spinoza’s defining moment, is that and nothing more.
But to state the obvious, if only you hadn’t, we’d be drinking champagne right now. On my tab. Like this suite of rooms.
"In slowly with the red hot end. Can you smell the heat? The little interior tuft of hairs a-scorchin‘? Don’t move so much, I don’t want to really burn you until I get to the eardrum! And exactly one hundred eight seconds to dance the steel against it without puncturing, until that very increment of time has passed where we’ve been taught that agonized shock collapses into resignation. And I hate the scent of charring flesh, don’t you? Even the slightest whiff breaks open a dam of unpleasant memories of projects gone bad.
"Pay dirt! Simplicity and elegance. And not even enough blood to stain the lovely cream pink carpeting. That little drum popped like a zit on prom night. And what a spasm wracks you. I wish I could transmit to the joy I’m feeling now. A rush of intimate uncrossable distance. Language snaps beneath the weight.
"I’ll save the other ear, like the other eye for the end, because of course I want to maintain a direction connection between us, until the moment of the final determination.
"It really should not have surprised me that it was impossible for an event of this kind, relatively unrehearsed, and providing overwhelming joy , could possibly go according to a planned timeline. I was planning on reading you some poetry to tantalize your "soul" or whatever the maggot is that is the axis of your rotating essence, but I’m going to strike that from the plans. I’ll leave it to your limited knowledge and imagination to speculate. Goodbye, ‘s’ word.
"We’re down to a half an hour, and this part has to be efficient. A tight strong rubber band for the base of your penis. Maybe my father was right, I should have been a surgeon. I’m certainly getting a small part knotted off well. And off with it. Not that I really need to, but I’ll go flush it down the toilet right now. Theatre and its subtle raptures.
"Not a lot of blood, but that was to be expected. Your parasympathetic nervous system has quite logically limited blood flow the hinterlands of the circulatory system, despite the pounding that is your heart, you heartless bastard. And I read your mind. This lecturing on the obvious is part of the torture. But how else is the audio portion of the entertainment to make any sense, otherwise?
"Now your balls. Let me go put the stereo a little louder. How are you managing to get that particular sound? If I were of a more musical bent, I think I would want to sample it for some grand musical project. It’s really quite unique.
"Being as thrifty as you were with her, I’m using your own shoelace to tie off the scrotum. Neatness counts in crime scene construction.
Unfortunately time does not permit us separate orchidectomies. They will both come off in one slow fell swoop with this three inch blade. Let us now also take three minutes of silence to contemplate the significance of your upcoming change of condition.
"Weren’t you amazed the first time you had to crudely deball a man in the field, how tough some of this tissue is? Especially using a knife like this. This is no K-Bar. There’s no torque.
"There we are, just had to keep hacking a bit. The value of persistence. I finally got it off. Let me go flush this little package down the toilet too. I’ll be right back.
"Twenty minutes to go. I didn’t expect this to take that long. I see your breathing is back to a manageable rate. The good news is that I really do have to kill you shortly.
"Originally I had also planned to carve out your tongue, cut off your hands and feet, and leave you to live. However, I had to consider that that ancient Arabic approach does not take into account the technological developments of the last few decades. One way or another, you would be able to tell your story. And unlike Poe’s story, The Cask of Amontillado, I have no convenient wine cellar to bury you alive in. This has to be our little secret.
"So we’re heading into tidy time. Don’t mind me if I whistle a little while I work. I’ll use your remaining shoelace to tie this hefty bag around your head after I duct tape your nostrils shut. My only real regret is that I have no pangs of conscience. You’re still getting off easier than she.
I suppose she civilized me. We both know I’ve barely scratched the surface of the agonies we know how to induce. Still, I am going to watch closely these final eighteen minutes, even while I’m tidying up. Perhaps there is something yet to be learned from witnessing the final moments of your monstrous absurdity. And I wish to show a little consideration to whomever discovers your remains.
"So I’m going to put on my imaginary French maid uniform, and get us cleaning up tout suite. I do have a plane to catch. And it’s nice to run early for a long flight. Some good old scented Lysol to clean your inconvenient spontaneous excretions. Place is already beginning to look almost as good as new.
"Nevertheless, I’ll have to knock a few points off the presentation‘s scorecard, because I believe we’ve gone a little overboard in our use of the color purple. Even your hands. Interesting. I wonder how the Forensics people will write that up.
"And the eye I did not puncture looked more likely to pop out than the one I paper clipped. Perhaps at the autopsy this detail will lead some minute aspect of Forensic science forward, and possibly lend your demise some redeeming function by enhancing the progress of human knowledge. What a shame. And I’m leaving them this instructive audio recording. I was hoping to leave you no purpose at all, but it’s too late now. My strange sense of professional courtesy perhaps always has been my vitiating aspect.
"Admittedly, it was unprofessional on my part to fall in love with her, but, as we both know, things transpire that they don’t ‘put in the training manual.’ One last gouge for the road. You should thank me for a cold paper clip in your right eardrum. You’ll know when it hits, and I get in the final word.
"Love is a tiny splendored thing indeed, like some butterfly in the dwindling Amazon rain forest. Especially in its extinction.
"Goodbye."